Two Pakistani kids killed, stuffed into box

LAHORE - A seven-year-old girl and her brother, 5, were strangled and then crammed into an iron box used for storing wheat in this Pakistani city. The police suspect that the girl was raped.

Medical examiners have concluded that the children whose bodies were found in a wheat-storage iron box on their rooftop about two weeks ago didn’t die accidentally, but were murdered.

The police believe that the girl was raped. Then she alongwith her brother Hannan was throttled. Their bodies were put in a 25-inch tall iron box on the roof of their home in Bhutto Colony Oct 31, Express Tribune reported Friday.

The police initially filed a case of accidental death, assuming that the two children were playing and accidentally locked themselves in the box in which they suffocated to death.

After receiving the autopsy report Thursday, the police registered a case of double murder and arrested five suspects, including the owner of the building.

“We do not believe an outsider could have been involved. It was probably someone who lived in the building,” Rana Shakeel, a police official, was quoted as saying.

He said the person who killed the children put the bodies into the grain box to mislead the investigation.